Clark to stay on part time for ‘consistency’

Dr. Kristine Clark, chief of integrated planning and performance excellence and President Dr Robert Vela. File

She will finish projects she started, but no termination date has been set.

By Kyle R. Cotton

kcotton11@student.alamo.edu

Despite the recent hiring of Dr. Francisco Solis as dean of performance excellence, Dr. Kristine Clark, chief of integrated planning and performance excellence, will stay on in a part-time capacity.

Clark will primarily work on any projects that were started prior to Solis being hired.

“What will happen is I’m going to break off some of the pieces I’ve already been working with to give those pieces additional focus,” Clark said.

“Realistically, what we are really talking about is rather than duplication of effort, more supplementing of effort,” Clark said. “The more people working on the college’s performance excellence piece the better it can be for the college.”

Currently, Clark is working on this college’s follow-up report on the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges’ questions of autonomy for accreditation and is a representative for this college during the district’s application to the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

The Baldrige award is the highest level of national recognition for performance excellence a U.S. organization can receive.

Up to 18 awards are given annually across six categories: manufacturing, service, small business, education, health care and nonprofit.

President Robert Vela reinforced that Solis is the head of the IPPE division, but Clark will stay on for continuity.

The new position for Solis pays $94,500 and Clark said she has not worked out the details regarding her pay with Vela, but she said she will be paid hourly and doesn’t receive any benefits such as insurance, paid leave and retirement benefits. Clark received $62.18 per hour last year.

“There is no way to introduce another writer in there when they have two different writing styles,” Vela said. “It would be a major interruption in that style and the way it’s being done. So I need her to close that out and her to help us contribute to the Alamo Colleges’ Baldrige model.

“It’s more writing and really collaborating with the departments to bring the information forward to really capture it and all that will continue under her role.”

Clark, who was retired when Vela hired her as part of the new IPPE division, said she will be working half-time like any other part-time employee depending on the project and has no set date for when she leaves.

“I’m kind of taking my continuation of the college project-by-project and need-by-need,” Clark said. “Having been a vice chancellor for Alamo Colleges and having been an executive VP for SAC; the bottom line is much of my heart belongs to SAC, and the Alamo Colleges. So as long as I feel as though I am able to contribute and to really help move the college forward, I’m willing to consider what’s available in terms of the need for ongoing projects.”